For dental or orthodontic treatment one or more imaging modalities such as orthopantograms (dental X-ray), computerized tomography (CT) scans or digital photographs are commonly used to analyze, diagnose and document a patient's condition. Recently, digital patient information has also found its way into the planning stage of treatment. Several software solutions exist for simulating dental implant placement in medical (CT) images (SimPlant™, Materialise Belgium), orthodontic treatment can be simulated using digitized information of the patient's dentition (OrthoCAD, Cadent, U.S.; Invisalign, Align Technologies, U.S.) and maxillofacial reconstructions can be planned in a virtual environment (SimPlant CMF, Materialise, Belgium). While these solutions provide powerful tools to the clinician to try out different alternatives at a functional level, the implications of these alternatives at an aesthetical level are generally far from being clear or in some cases disregarded altogether when choosing the clinical approach.
WO2004/098378 and WO2004/098379 describe a workstation for creating a virtual three-dimensional model of a patient using several imaging sources, such as a CT scan, an X-ray and photographs. Software tools allow a trained user to manipulate the model to simulate changes in the position of teeth, such as through orthodontic treatment. The tools described in these documents can be used to plan treatment, and can present a simulation of the outcome of the treatment to a patient. However, as these tools give the user a considerable degree of freedom in the treatment planning, with many decisions to be made by the user, they still require an experienced user to plan the treatment.
Accordingly, the present invention seeks to provide an improved way of planning dental treatments for a patient.